Providing a seamless user experience is no longer just a goal of some companies, it is now fully expected by consumers. The experience they expect includes seamless integration of not just their devices, but also their platforms of choice—including their telephone communications, their email, and their social media platforms.
Along with this expectation, is the assumption that their devices will speak their language. And this is not metaphorical, consumers expect them to actually speak their native language. Not long ago, many users suffered through the use of devices that only spoke one language—typically English. These days, however, all devices support multiple languages, and some devices are even capable of fully interacting with their users in more than one hundred languages.
While the automobile industry is typically a latecomer to the so-called systems integration party, consumers are developing a healthy level of expectation for them as well. When purchasing a new vehicle, they now expect it to integrate their smartphone—including handsfree communication and music streaming using BLUETOOTH. They expect it to have provisions for uploading and storing their music library in the vehicle infotainment system. And yes—they now expect it to speak their native language too.
Setting the language on any device can be tricky, because the user must first navigate a command menu in another language just to find the language setting. This is especially the case if the device is not being set up for the first time.
As vehicles are often driven by more than one person, it is quite likely that the person about to drive it is not setting it up for the first time. Accordingly, while many people often abandon their attempts to set a language on a device for the foregoing reasons, it can be downright dangerous if the person drives a vehicle which attempts to notify him or her with important messages and information, but does so in a language the driver does not understand. Thus, not only for the sake of seamless integration, but also for safety, there exists a need for a system that easily sets the vehicle language to a language readily understood by the driver.
Considering that millions of people each year rent automobiles in countries where languages other than their own are spoken more commonly, it is a frequent occurrence that drivers are unable to understand vehicle prompts, messages, and street signs sufficiently to act appropriately and safely. Accordingly, this language mismatch between drivers and vehicles creates a huge safety concern.
There have been attempts by some to provide solutions for setting languages of various devices. While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present disclosure as disclosed hereafter.
In the present disclosure, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which the present disclosure is concerned.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate the present disclosure, no technical aspects are disclaimed and it is contemplated that the claims may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.